-By Warner Todd Huston
An amusing episode being promulgated by the extremist, left-wing group Think Progress has cropped up recently. The lefty activist group is using a “leaked memo” to smear Dick Armey’s organization FreedomWorks and is trying to imply that anyone that stands against Obamacare is perpetrating “violence and absurdity” at townhall meetings across the country. Does Think Progress have proof of this link or this widely encouraged violence? Not a shred. Is the truth stopping them from pushing their meme? Not a bit.
These lefties are all atwitter because Politico recently reported that right leaning groups opposing Obamacare are rallying their forces to appear at the many upcoming townhall meetings held by the Obama administration and those members of Congress that are soon heading home for the Summer break. It is being termed a “right-wing harassment strategy” by Think Progress.
But Think Progress is right about there being “absurdity” afoot, I have to say. If you want an “absurdity” we might point it out in an extremist, left wing group trying to paint organized protests as somehow illicit! Now that is absurd. Can we take a moment to revel in the hypocrisy of an extremist, leftist group acting aghast that the right would dare gather together in protest? Can we laugh at the bald-faced hypocrisy of an extremist, Marxist leaning group like Think Progress acting as if it is untoward for people to gather together in large numbers to loudly proclaim their druthers on a federal policy? Can we also all remember the many hundreds of anti-war, anti-WTO, and anti-anti protests that have been organized by communist groups, Marxist groups, CodePinkos, and their ilk — groups from the USA and abroad both — protests where thousands of lefties have so often gathered to let their feelings be known to the world?
Anyway, the hypocrisy of a lefty group acting as if organized protest is somehow illicit in light of the left’s long, long history of precisely that sort of behavior is just as hilarious as Think Progress imagining that “think” is something that any of them engaging in.
So, we can laugh that “think” could be any part of what Think Progress does and we have scoffed at their faux shock that the right would dare to organize to oppose this most socialist of all presidents whose attempts to nationalize our healthcare is on going. We are amused that they are so alarmed by mass protests when mass protesting is something they’ve been doing for decades. Now we can get to a specific example of how truth, thinking, and legitimacy are things beyond their grasp.
As mentioned, Think Progress (I laugh every time I say that) used a Politico report on the healthcare protests coming from the right as a way to segue to its claim to have “discovered” what it is calling a “ rel=”nofollow”>leaked memo” by a tea party protest group in Connecticut. TP goes on to try and link this memo to the Dick Armey’s *FreedomWorks, among others. Unfortunately for any truth of the matter, they have no actual proof that these entities have any link one to the other at all. All TP has is innuendo and assumption. It doesn’t appear that the person that supposedly wrote the memo is an employee of FreedomWorks nor is FreedomWorks mentioned in any way in the supposedly leaked memo.
The one whose name is signed to the memo, a Bob MacGuffie, seems to be a “founding member” of Right Principles, a group that has organized for tea party type events in Conn.
So how does Think (ha) Progress link the “leaked memo” to Freedom works?
The memo above also resembles the talking points being distributed by FreedomWorks for pushing an anti-health reform assault all summer.
It “resembles” FreedomWorks’ stuff? Um, wouldn’t any talking points that are about the same issue and coming from the same viewpoint “resemble” each other at least in some ways? I mean, how different can such talking points be anyway? I’d bet a dollar that any CodePink talking points email would “resemble” MoveOn.org’s memos… wouldn’t ya think? So, should we assume that the CodePinkos are the MoveOn.orgers? Or can we safely assume they are different groups even though they come from the same political end of the spectrum?
The truth is that, ideological similarity aside, the “leaked memo” bears no similarity in style or graphics to the FreedomWorks activism packet that Think Progress is using as a comparison. They don’t “resemble” each other at all. (I have a call into FW for a response, but I don’t expect to hear from them until Monday and will update then.)
Then Think Progress goes off on a tangent about other righty activist groups and by innuendo links them all to this so-called leaked memo as if it is a surety that they all have a hand in the thing.
Of course, the worst part of Think Progress’ scare tactic against the righty groups opposing Obamacare is that TP is trying to claim that “violence” is one of the tactics being used by conservatives.
This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity.
Yet, sadly for the truth, TP does not offer a single incident of “violence” to prove its claim, nor does it offer any example of a right leaning group encouraging violence or advocating that it serve as a part of their bag of tricks.
Of course, the “leaked memo” does recommend hardball tactics in any political meeting. The memo says that their followers should be loud and insistent or “disruptive” at townhall meetings. But there is not even a hint that violence be utilized in the memo.
Naturally, the left wing echo chamber has cranked up the false association with a vengeance. This faux story is all over the slimy underbelly of the left-o-sphere despite that there is no there, there. There simply is no connection that I can find between Mr. MacGuffie’s group in Connecticut and FreedomWorks.
Like I said, for Think Progress (I gotta stop saying that, it’s killin’ me!) and their ilk the truth really doesn’t matter.
*Disclosure: I have blogged off and on for groups associated with FreedomWorks but am not and never have been a member of that outfit.
(Cross posted at HealthcareHorseRace.com.)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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